A major review of the UK’s railway industry could put safety back to the dark days of Railtrack, Paddington crash survivor Pam Warren has warned.

Sir Roy McNulty’s Rail Value For Money review, published last week, is intended to save £1 billion by 2019.

Ms Warren said she feared safety would be compromised if track maintenance was put back in the hands of private firms as recommended.

She said: “If you saw a chart of the rail industry and who does what with who, I’m not surprised there are inefficiencies. But safety is where I started getting concerned.”

Ms Warren, from Whitchurch-on-Thames, was among 520 people injured in the Ladbroke Grove tragedy in which 31 people died.

She wore a protective face mask for 18 months after the crash while recovering from severe burns.

Ms Warren became the spokeswoman for the Paddington Survivors’ Group but stepped out of the spotlight in 2004.

She plucked up the courage to start travelling by train again two years ago after being convinced safety had significantly improved.

But she felt she had to speak out again now.

Ms Warren said: “What is being proposed is shrinking Network Rail and having seven parts of it across the regions and these would speak to the train operating companies (TOCs).

“The TOCs would then be responsible for track, signalling, points and safety aspects. Everything that got taken away from them before would be given back to them. If you have to bring in private companies, fine, but make sure there is a rail regulator with teeth which can whack them hard if they fail.”

Railtrack was the private infrastructure company responsible at the time of the Paddington rail crash in October 1999, for which it was fined £4 million.

Network Rail was fined £3m for the Potters Bar crash, in which seven people died in 2002, even though Railtrack was still in charge at the time.

Network Rail took on responsibility when the industry was renationalised in October 2002.

Ms Warren said: “I can’t believe, after everything that has happened, somebody would look at this report and say we’ll go back to how it was. There is no way I would catch the train again if I was not happy I was safe.”